One, Two, Three, Four
by The Anonymous Forgot my name
Summary: TFP. Post-"Darkest Hour". A feeling, a thought, a word, over and over in her head, driving her to the brink of madness.


It was a feeling that had plagued her mind ever since they fled from the base.

As she took Jack and drove, unsure of anything anymore, it was there. She just had yet to realize it.

For the first few days, there was a pain of sorts, a melancholia that she kept hidden from her partner as they drove as far as she had the energy for. Arcee pushed the feeling away. This was no time to be distracted by despair, particularly when she had to keep it together in order to keep Jack from giving in to his own fears. The fear over his mother, the fear over his friends.

The fear over his entire existence as his planet was decimated.

They had a mission. Get as far away from base as they could. Then regroup. Fight another day. The final order of Optimus Prime.

It was undefinable, indescribable, when Arcee finally acknowledged the feeling. It was just that, a feeling. A vague construct in the depths of her mind and spark that she could not name or place. She did not, could not possibly know what it meant, what it was telling her, warning her. So she kept driving.

And the days turned to weeks and she put in as much distance as she could, but she could not find her friends, her family. June. Bulkhead and Miko, Bee and Raf. Ratchet. Even Smokescreen.

(Wheeljack was probably as dead as her fallen commander, if the propaganda she picked up was any indication. Agent Fowler's helicopter surely did not stand the chance, either. But what was a human casualty to Megatron?)

If not for the human she had grown so attached to, Arcee would have given in to a complete loneliness she had not felt since Tailgate died.

As those days turned to weeks, the feeling evolved into thought. A thought she had no meaning of, but was more definable, more coherent than when she first realized it was there. She could ignore the feeling, but she could not ignore the thought.

When the nights came, and they stopped to rest, the Thought became stronger. Neither Autobot nor human could sleep easy by that point, even when Jack dropped down to the ground in exhaustion (sometimes with his helmet still on). But the drumming of the thought process in Arcee's mind kept her awake and agitated, cruelly denying her a few hours of escape from the hellish nightmare that began when they were all fool enough to think they could restore Cybertron.

And then some nights, when it became too much for her, she would fall to the ground beside Jack, never aware that she had been sleeping until she had woken up.

Jack knew that there was something wrong- -something else to add to their multitude of problems. Arcee had gone almost completely silent after almost a month of driving. All of her focus had been diverted to keeping Jack safe and to the Thought. Everything else was secondary, unimportant.

She had begun to fear that the Thought festering in her neural net would drown everything out, even protecting Jack- -her only friend and ally now.

Unsurprisingly, it was one of those nights, where Jack slept fitfully and Arcee tried not to go mad, that she realized the Thought which had been tormenting her- -mocking her as it got stronger every day since Megatron's victory- -was nothing more than one word.

And though Arcee now knew the word, she still knew nothing of the meaning. The burden that had nearly destroyed her mind eased a bit, and it was not until she woke up with the sun that she realized she had been able to rest true for the first time since the feeling began.

But the word still haunted her.

_Arise_.

She spoke again. She asked Jack his opinion on where they should go. She even had the presence of mind to feel incredibly guilty for shutting him out, unaware of it as she was. He had asked- -many times- -what was wrong, but she could not say. The Thought that tortured her mind and spark kept her from saying. Now that she knew the Word, she was free to say but could not explain.

It was frustrating, but somehow- -through the bond that had been formed by time and war- -Jack understood. And he was there for her as much as she was for him. He began to take over the driving, freeing her up to focus on understanding. Soon Arcee was completely unaware of where they were going, until she would snap out of her head space and ask.

And when Arcee was trapped in her mind and could not ask, Jack would tell her, and bring her back.

She appreciated this.

_Arise_.

Then, after four Earth-months of driving- -four months of anguish in the truest definition of the word- -they found one of their own.

Ratchet.

They had come across him somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains. Would have missed him, too, had Jack not stopped to do what was necessary and heard a deranged chatter coming from the trees nearby.

The Medic looked to be in as bad a shape as Arcee. Almost as crazed, as well. When they found him, his ambulance form was covered in burns and scuffs, and he would not transform or acknowledge Jack's presence, for reasons that flummoxed the duo. Instead, he addressed only Arcee, and even that was as if he were speaking to her through an ocean, or the vastness of space.

Arcee knew what that meant. She had witnessed it too often in the War.

There was no logical reason to why the rest of them, the last of Optimus Prime's Autobot force, were not behaving as though they were trapped in a fog. Arcee herself had more than enough reasons to experience a mental shutdown.

But then, maybe she was not one to talk at the moment.

_Arise_.

It was there, in the presence of Ratchet, that the Word peaked in its intensity. Almost physical now in its pain, it began to completely overwhelm her senses, but only Jack took notice. Ratchet kept talking as Arcee dropped to her knees, unable to stand it any longer. She vaguely felt Jack's flesh hand press against her metal arm, unable to help her in any way. She cried out, staring at Ratchet through clouded optics, pleading with him to help her.

But he continued his raving, and somehow that managed to stay clear in her audio sensors. Maybe his voice was the only thing keeping her from blacking out permanently.

And so she heard, no matter how much she tried not to, of Ratchet driving back almost immediately upon being bridged out. How he had found nothing of their base- -their home!- -but ash and rock and molten slag.

Optimus Prime was gone- -body taken as a trophy, if it was recoverable at all- -but the certificate of his death remained.

The Matrix of Leadership.

Somehow, through a miracle of Primus- -a being no one was sure they should worship anymore- -the Matrix had escaped Megatron's grasp.

And Ratchet had it.

It was only after he had finished his story, when Arcee's body had become completely numb to everything, that the Autobot Medic transformed into his true shape, and revealed the Matrix he had been hauling around in the back of his alt-form for months, the only piece left of their friend and leader.

And it was only then, in the presence of the Matrix, that the mental torture of Arcee did cease.

And it was then, finally, that she understood.

She had thought her final order from the beloved Autobot Commander had been to flee, to escape with Jack and to find the others.

She was wrong.

This Word, this Thought, this Feeling that had been plaguing her for months. It was not a warning, it was a calling.

It was the final order of Optimus Prime.

_Arise_.


End file.
